What BF Skinner and Richard Feynman Can Tell Us about Iran

So now we have new excitement over Iran prompted by the killing of Qasem Soleimani. Some reminders: Soleimani had been responsible for the Iranian attempts at taking over Iraq, which killed thousands, and for bringing in the tactic of using IEDs in Iraq, which killed more than 600 Americans and maimed thousands. And, Soleimani was under UN sanctions and was — in theory — not permitted to travel outside Iran; clearly he had and was meeting with Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of Hashd al-Shaabi, the insurrectionist militia that had killed thousands of Iraqis.

Soleimani was an active duty military officer in theater; this wasn't an assassination.

There are thousands and thousands of words available explaining why Soleimani was a bad guy and a worthy target; I just wanted to summarize them for context.

I think there's a larger point here, something that BF Skinner showed with pigeons but that goes for people too: when you reward a behavior, you get more of it.